Out-of-this-world astronomy ads debut on Toronto transit

7 January 2009

University of Toronto astronomers are giving the sun, the moon and the stars to riders of Toronto public transit (the TTC) this month with a series of high-impact ads that promote the celestial science as part of 2009's International Year of Astronomy.

Three thousand of the colourful, thought-provoking ads will appear in buses, subways and streetcars as part of an innovative campaign to make the other-worldly science more relevant to earth dwellers.

"The cosmos is not something that's untouchable or far away," says campaign organizer Ray Jayawardhana, Canada Research Chair in Observational Astrophysics and associate professor at the University of Toronto. "It's all around us and we're intimately connected to it. So, we want to remind people about those connections as we kick-off the International Year of Astronomy."

The new transit ads draw clear links between the science of astronomy and everyday life. One highlights the fact that our days are getting longer thanks to tides caused by the moon, while another points out that a small fraction of the television static is actually caused by the afterglow from the origin of the universe, otherwise known as the "Big Bang." The same designs also feature in 50,000 bookmarks, to be distributed at a variety of astronomy outreach events throughout the year. The TTC ads and the bookmarks all point to a website - www.coolcosmos.net - that will explain the interesting science behind them through podcasts and lively articles.

"We're trying to bring astronomy into the daily conversation, to foster science as an integral part of human culture," says Jayawardhana. "We also want to share with everyone the excitement of world-class astronomy research happening right here in Toronto, at places like U of T's Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics."